


Caution when it comes to love

by bistiles (alis)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Talia Hale, Gen, Hale Family Feels, Kid Derek, Young Peter Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-07 23:38:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1918434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alis/pseuds/bistiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek learned early that love was a dangerous thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caution when it comes to love

**Author's Note:**

> Losely based on this verse from Shontelle’s Impossible (or James Arthur, the most known one)
> 
> "I remember years ago  
> Someone told me I should take  
> Caution when it comes to love  
> I did, I did"

Derek remembers being really young when he first learns love is a dangerous thing. He should be seven, maybe even younger, and he was quietly playing alone in the house. Laura was away, still at school in some extra activity and Cora was still just a baby, so Derek sat by himself and played with his Legos. He was almost finishing his colorful helicopter when he overheard his mom’s voice. Something in her tone made Derek stop. He was just developing his werewolf hearing, and listening to people from afar was still as new as it was unreliable. But as he focused on his mom’s voice, he could hear her perfectly.

“Peter, I need you to calm down.” His mom was saying. She wasn’t using the alpha voice, he knew, because her alpha voice was booming and snarling and it made Derek whimper, even if not direct to him. It was a different tone, a pleading one, one that Derek wasn’t all that used to. He stood up and tiptoed in the direction his mom’s voice was coming from, the study he soon realized. The door was closed, but he didn’t need to get too close to hear anyway. He just sat down at the stair’s bottom step and listening in.

“I can’t believe- I can’t believe she-“ Peter was snarling, his voice warped by what Derek supposed was his fangs. He had seen Peter and his dad in their beta form before, so he knew how they sounded. He wished he could have a beta form soon was well. “She betrayed me, Talia, she-“ A loud crash sounded, followed by an angry howl. Derek scurried back instinctually. You don’t stay around when a wolf sounds like that, even if it’s family.

“Peter, get a grip!” His mom called again, more forcefully this time. “I understand you’re feeling betrayed, I do- Do not give me that look, Peter!” Mom sounded angry, closer to her alpha voice than ever, and Derek stifles a small sob in the back of his throat. He wanted to go inside and lie belly up in front of his mom; he wanted to run away as fast as he could.

He stood where he is.

There was another snarl, followed for a more commanding one. Silence followed and Derek listens. He could hear Peter’s angry breathing; he could hear his mom moving around. There was some shuffle he couldn’t quite place, the sound like fabric against fabric, quiet, so quiet. The sound was lost in the next moment, so was the sound of Peter’s breathing. Derek waited.

“I understand your anger, Peter, but I’m not about to start a pack war. It was terrible what she did, she should have never left like she did, least of all with that wolf from Smith pack.” Derek frowned. He didn’t know much about other packs, but he’d heard about the Smith Pack before. Mom didn’t like them, so Derek didn’t like them as well.

“But we should! She lied to me, she betrayed us!” He snarled again and Derek wondered how Mom wasn’t getting more angry about that. “We can’t possibly let it go, we can’t let this insult go-“  
“This is not up to debate, Peter. I’ve made my decision already. Davis Pack already agreed in giving us reparations for their break in our agreement. They won’t pursue Rosie and neither will us. Am I clear?”

“How can you put your tail between your legs about th-“

“ _Am I clear, Peter?_ ”

Ah. There. Mom’s alpha voice. The one she only used against Derek once, when he insisted in following the pack for a hunt a year before. The one Derek still dreams about at times, about the shiver that went through him when she roared, about how he felt, deep in his soul, he had to obey at any cost. Derek was holding his knees, swaying slightly. He felt the urge now, less strong than when it was directed at him, but it was strong enough to make him tip his head back and bare his throat, even if his Mom wasn’t there for him to submit.

She paused after roaring, silence growing pregnant and more tense by the second. Derek wondered why he wasn’t hearing Peter submitting and how he was standing his ground against Mom’s alpha voice. Eventually though, several seconds later, he heard Peter make such a wounded sound that Derek flinched in sympathy.

“Good. Now let this go, Peter. It’s not worth it.” There was another pause. “She’s not worth it, my brother.”

The moment later Mom left the study, eyes zeroing on Derek on the stairs. She frowned at him, like she couldn’t understand what he was doing there and Derek looked at her, wide eyed and slighted apprehensive that she was going to roar at him. She seemed to understand though, because she crouched and picked Derek up easily as If he was still an infant. He rubbed his cheek against hers and she purred low in her chest.

“I guess I should have remembered you’re growing up. Did mom scare you, baby?”

Derek nodded shyly and she rubbed his back soothingly. She knew that Derek was so very afraid of her alpha voice and his dad once explained to Derek that it wasn’t all that scary. Everybody had the impulse to obey, but Derek got so scared because he was just a young wolf and wasn’t used to the pack power balance. Once he grew older and his wolf matured it would be better. Derek didn’t understand all that as well, but dad said he would once he grew up, so he counted on that.  
He saw Peter leave, eyes rimmed in red and exuding such violence and hate, that Derek hid into his mom’s neck, whining a bit. His mom didn’t say anything about it, about how Derek was supposed to be a big boy now that his wolf was developing. But Peter sometimes was mean and he looked scary, so he hid away until he heard the door slam. His Mom sighed deeply, still rubbing his back.

  
That night, Derek couldn’t sleep. He kept revisiting his Mom roaring and Peter’s angry face and it kept him awake. He rolled out of bed and padded barefooted through the house, silent as he could as not to wake up his parents. They had a light sleep, Derek knew, and if he wasn’t cautious with the creaking boards, he would wake his Mom up and he didn’t want that. He just thought that if he could maybe eat a cookie or two, that would help him fall asleep. He was half way down the stair when the door silently opened. Derek stared, confused, as someone came inside, just a shadow in the dark. His eyes weren’t wolf’s eyes yet, so he couldn’t see much, and he was about to ask when the person raised his eyes and stared at Derek.

The person had electric blue eyes.

Derek was about to scream, about to ask for his parents to come down when the person moved. His lungs were barely full of air enough to below, when a stick hand connected with his mouth, stopping his scream dead in his throat. Derek trashed a little, scared to death, when the person just shushed him gently, a stark contrast to the hand pressing his face to enough force to bruise. Derek looked up, to his attacker’s face and recognized him stantly.

Blue Eyes was Peter.

The fight left Derek the instant he recognized him, but Peter didn’t let go. He kept holding, fingers in a death grip, just a hint of his claws puncturing Derek’s cheek. He smiled with no warmth at Derek.

“Quiet, dear nephew.” Peter whispered, low and sweet. “We don’t want to wake up your Mom now, do we?”

Derek didn’t answer, eyes wide and terrified, and he whine in the back of his throat when Peter shook him to answer. He had tears stinging his eyes, both from fear and pain, but mostly from confusion. Peter was pack, why was he doing that? He was pack, why he had the bad eyes, the blue eyes of bad people his Mom had thought him about? Peter’s eyes weren’t blue; they were yellow like Laura’s and Dad’s, why was it blue now?

In his fear, Derek didn’t realized Peter had let him go until he felt a different hand holding him. He looked up, suddenly terrified of who was there, only to see his Mom. She had red eyes, alpha eyes, and her fangs were down. He stumbled back into her, pressing his body against her legs, and she let him for a moment, before pushing Derek aside and stepping down to one step higher than Peter, looming over him.

“What are you doing?” she asked, voice deep as a thunder. Derek breathed hard, feeling the power, knowing where it laid.

“No-Nothing, sister mine, Derek just got scared in the d-“

“Don’t you dare lie to me, Peter, don’t you dare.” She menaced low. Derek moved a bit, seeing that her hand was gripping Peter tightly. He groaned through his clenched teeth. “Answer me!”

Peter’s eyes flashed blue and Talia sucked in a surprised breath. She pushed him backwards, and Peter stumbled down the stairs, not falling, but far from his usual grace. She stared at him, and while Derek couldn’t see his Mom’s face, he could see the terror written on Peter’s.  
“I told you, Peter, I told you we wouldn’t do anything!”

“That whore betrayed me-“

“I told you to let it go!”

“She cheated on me, she left me!” Peter roared back, full of fury.

Talia roared back, no words and pure fury and Peter dropped on his knees as a puppet whose strings were cut.

“What’s happening here, for god’s sake!” Dad appeared on top of the stairs, looking sleep mussed.  
Talia looked back, her face contorted in a mask of fury. Her eyes barely skimmed over Derek, but he knew he didn’t go unnoticed.

“Take Derek to his room, please. I’m going to deal with Peter.”

His Dad hesitated for a moment before coming down and picking Derek up. He never did these days, saying that Derek was too big for that now, but he would still tuck him in and kiss him when Derek went to school. Tonight though, he picked Derek up as he did not long agoi, cradling him with care, as he made his way back to Derek’s room.

“Dad, Dad- Peter’s eyes.” Derek started. He saw Laura standing on the corridor, but she scurried back into her room with a look of his Dad.

“I know, baby. Peter did something- God, Peter did something bad tonight.”  
Dad put him in bed, pulling his comforter up to Derek’s chin. He stayed sitting in his bed, eyes on the door though. He seemed to be listening in to Mom and Peter, though Derek could hear nothing.

“What did he do, Dad?” Derek asked, voice a whisper. He was still scared and his cheek were still hurt from where Peter’s nails had punctured the skin. It would heal eventually, faster than a regular human but slower than a matured wolf.

“He hurt someone, Der.” Dad answered after a while. “He made a bad call.”  
Derek bit his thumb, nervously chewing on it for a moment before his Dad pulled his hand away. He didn’t understand.

“Why did he do it?”

Dad didn’t answer for a long time, eyes back to the door. He closed his eyes at some point, shaking his head slightly. He seemed disappointed and resigned, things that Derek would only be able to recognize and understand years later, but in that night, his seven years old self only saw sadness.

“Love is a very dangerous thing, Derek. Sometimes it blinds people to reason. Sometimes it even drives them to madness.” His Dad patted his belly before passing an affectionate hand on Derek’s head. “No one can destroy you more completely them those you love.”

Derek slept that night with those words ringing in his ears. Years later, he would regret not having held them closer to his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, you can find me @killwithmyheart @Tumblr!
> 
> This song screams Derek for me. I may or may not do all other parts based on Derek's love life. Who knows?


End file.
